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For Immediate Release

Dollar Discount and Toll Lane Conversions Provide More Reasons to Get on FasTrak®

Sign-up Surge Sets New Record for FasTrak® Enrollment

Contact:

Rod McMillan, MTC/BATA
510.817.5860

Randy Rentschler, MTC/BATA
510.817.5780

Jeff Weiss, Caltrans
510.286.5543

Oakland, Calif., July 8, 2004…Motorists soon will have seven more reasons to use FasTrak® to pay their tolls on Bay Area bridges. That’s the number of lanes at the region’s toll plazas that will be converted for exclusive use by vehicles with FasTrak® electronic toll collection transponders. The first of the seven new FasTrak®-only lanes debuts this weekend at the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge toll plaza. By Sunday, July 11, the second and third toll lanes from the left will be reserved for FasTrak® users.

The following weekend, a second FasTrak®-only lane will open at the Dumbarton Bridge, with the first and second toll lanes from the left reserved for FasTrak®-equipped vehicles by Sunday, July 18. Existing cash-or- FasTrak® lanes at the Benicia-Martinez, Richmond-San Rafael and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge toll plazas also will be converted to FasTrak®-only lanes in the next two months.

The opening of the new FasTrak®-only lanes comes amid a surge of enrollment in the FasTrak® electronic toll collection program. Bay Area motorists opened nearly 20,000 new FasTrak® accounts between June 28 and July 4, shattering the record of 7,888 FasTrak® enrollments set the previous week. Weekly enrollments averaged about 1,500 in April; 2,100 in May; and 7,000 for June.

“People know a good deal when they see it,” said Rod McMillan, manager of Bridge & Highway Operations for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which oversees the FasTrak® program in its role as the Bay Area Toll Authority. “The transponders are free, the sign-up process is easy, and motorists who use FasTrak® will save a dollar every time they cross one of the toll bridges between now and Halloween — and they don’t have to stop at a toll plaza.”

Tolls on the Bay Area’s seven Caltrans-operated toll bridges — Antioch, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez, Dumbarton, Richmond-San Rafael, San Francisco-Oakland Bay, and San Mateo-Hayward — increased by $1 on July 1, raising the charge for cars and light trucks to $3 from the previous $2 level. Drivers of two-axle vehicles who pay their tolls electronically with a FasTrak® transponder will receive a $1 discount off the new toll through October 31. The four-month promotional discount is being offered as a way to encourage motorists to enroll in the FasTrak® program, which in addition to short-term cash savings can offer motorists long-term benefits in convenience and reduced congestion.

The $1 toll increase was approved on March 2, 2004, when by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, voters in the region passed Regional Measure 2 (RM 2). The $1 toll increase will raise approximately $125 million a year to fund a comprehensive program of projects to relieve congestion and expand transit service in the vicinity of bridge corridors. MTC will administer the revenues from the toll increase and oversee the package of traffic-relief projects the increase will fund.

For more information about FasTrak®, including an online enrollment application, go to <www.511.org>. Applications also can be ordered from the FasTrak® customer service center by telephone at 888.725.TRAK (8725) or by calling 511, saying “traffic” at the first prompt, and then saying “FasTrak®.” Motorists who open an account will be sent a free FasTrak® transponder, which is generally affixed to a vehicle’s windshield.

MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

NOTE: Tolls on the Golden Gate Bridge remain at $4 for FasTrak® users and $5 for motorists who pay in cash. More information on the Golden Gate Bridge toll structure is available at <www.goldengate.org>.

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New FasTrak®-only Lanes

DOWNLOAD:

Diagrams of lane configurations for new FasTrak®-only lanes (PDF)


Related press release from June 30, 2004

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